The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad has partnered LinkedIn India to form groups on LinkedIn platform to allow its alumni to network, explore new business and lateral recruitment opportunities. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 175 million members worldwide and more than 17 million in India.

These groups on LinkedIn will allow the IIM-A alumni, several of whom are currently top executives and business people, to connect with their contemporaries, faculty members and even current students for opportunities like networking, mentoring and recruitment.

The two groups are the “Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad” group (meant for PGP, PGPX, PGP-ABM, PGP-PMP and FPM alumni) and the “Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Executive Education Alumni” group (meant for all eligible alumni of the Management Development Programme (MDP), Faculty Development Programme (FDP), Armed Forces Programme (AFP), 3-Tier Programme (3-TP) and Management Education Programme (MEP)). They will serve as networking platforms for alumni of both the full-time and executive education programmes.

The groups will be certified by LinkedIn with an official badge to convey the authenticity of the forums and encourage participation by alumni. The access to these groups will be moderated by IIMA’s Alumni office, thereby ensuring all group members are verified alumni of IIMA.

Moreover, the IIMA groups will facilitate members, who are mid- and senior-level executives from leading corporations and businesses, to strengthen their network and leverage it to their professional advantage. IIMA also plans to provide recruiters access to the full-time alumni group for lateral hiring opportunities.

Hari V. Krishnan, Country Manager, LinkedIn India, said, “At LinkedIn, we are focused on helping professionals achieve their career goals and become more productive and successful. In order to maximize their career, alumni of high-quality institutions like IIM-A actively strive to network with each other. We are delighted that IIM-A has chosen LinkedIn as their primary platform to manage their alumni relations. Leveraging our networking technology and products, they should now have the most dynamic alumni solution in the market.”

“LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and our alumni of leading Indian professionals are already networking here. Through our LinkedIn groups, we want to provide our strong and influential alumni base with an opportunity to connect with each other and also keep in touch with the events on campus on a verified platform,” said Professor Vijaya Sherry Chand, Dean (Alumni and External Relations), IIMA.